The Guardian view on artificial intelligence: look out, it’s ahead of you | Editorial

There is a tendency to see intelligence where it does not exist. But it is just as wrong to fail to see where it is emerging

Google artificial intelligence project DeepMind is building software to trawl through millions of patient records from three NHS hospitals to detect early signs of kidney disease. The project raises deep questions not only about data protection but about the ethics of artificial intelligence. But these are not the obvious questions about the ethics of autonomous, intelligent computers.

Computer programs can now do some things that it once seemed only human beings could do, such as playing an excellent game of Go. But even the smartest computer cannot make ethical choices, because it has no purpose of its own in life. The program that plays Go cannot decide that it also wants a driving licence like its cousin, the program that drives Google’s cars.

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via The Guardian view on artificial intelligence: look out, it’s ahead of you | Editorial